Psalm 88

Psalm 88 Work

1 John is the Plan – Prayer Plan – Next Week Guest, then me, then Wayne first of August

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Why in the world is this Psalm in the Bible? Surely someone made a mistake.

88:6-7

Most of the Psalms of Lament end with a ray of hope

Psalm 13:1,5-6

Psalm 13:1 ESV

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

Psalm 13:5–6 ESV

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

This one ends with the word darkness, Psalm 88:18

Psalm 88:18 (ESV)

You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my only friend is darkness.

How can that be left in the Bible? That’s not how a Christian is supposed to pray, a Christian can lament, but a Christian should pray like Psalm 13. TRUST!

But God wanted this Psalm in the Bible, in the Psalter – the songbook of the Jews and early church, people that followed God would sing this Psalm and that was Good.

We don’t know exactly what this man in Psalm 88 is enduring. We know he has been abandoned by his friends. It is perhaps most clear that he is dealing with Death. He blames God. He feels like God has abandoned him. He is angry.

2 Truths and 1 Call

The Bible and Darkness are Real (even for the Christian)

The Bible is REAL, it doesn’t duck the issues that we face of pain and depression and real darkness. Job crying out to God that his suffering isn’t fair, Habakkuk crying out to God asking how he could use a worse country to destroy Israel, Jeremiah weeping that God has allowed the city he loves to fall, the Saints in Revelation crying out HOW MUCH LONGER!?

The Bible isn’t a salesman trying to sell you on Christianity, its REAL, and dealing with REAL things.

We realize also here that it is possible for the Christian, the one that loves God, to experience profound and lasting darkness. Even though we have been saved, we can still face real darkness, despair, and what we call today depression.

“Im a Christian so REAL bad things cant happen to me ” . . . Jesus . . .

You can be a believing trusting Christian and yet be in darkness that lasts a while, and it doesn’t mean that you aren’t faithful or that you aren’t saved.

God’s Grace and Compassion are Radical

This guy is not handling it all that greatly or faithfully, this guy is doing a lot wrong.

This prayer has ZERO sense of Thy will be Done. This prayer has ZERO sense that God will use his circumstances for spiritual glories. This prayer has ZERO gratitude for all that God had given him.

This Psalm was written by a guy named Heman, who is mentioned pretty often in the Chronicles, he was Israel’s version of a worship leader, he repeatedly and at crucial times would lead the nation in praise and song. But he had become dejected, and had forgotten all of the beauties and gifts of God, as we often do when we find ourselves in darkness.

He criticizes God sarcastically for being irrational! Psalm 88:10-11

Psalm 88:10–11 ESV

Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

I have all these things I want to do for you and you wont let me, you’re letting me die! I won’t be able to do any of them if I am dead! Its ALMOST blasphemous. It’s certainly not respectful or honoring. Its not Thy Will be Done.

My Only Friend is Darkness – YOU OBVIOUSLY AREN’T MY FRIEND!

WHY IS THIS IN THE BIBLE?

GOD PUT THESE PSALMS HERE, HE WANTED IT THERE. He didn’t say, “I don’t want anyone to think I’m the God of someone like that” – He is – He is the God of THAT MAN!

He isn’t a Dictatorial Tyrant looking for any chance to send you to the Death Chambers, He is a Graceful and Compassionate father of children that He knows are in pain

God is saying “I am the God of this man even though he’s not getting it right”

I am your God not because you get it all right, because I am a God of grace and compassion

British OT Scholar Derek Kidner – “The very presence of these prayers in scripture is a witness to Gods understanding. God knows how men speak when they are desperate”

Michael Wilcock on this Psalm “This darkness can happen to a believer, it doesn’t mean youre lost. This darkness can happen to someone who does not deserve it, after all if happened to Jesus, that doesn’t mean you’ve strayed. This darkness can happen at any time as long as this world lasts, because only in the next world will this darkness be done away with. This darkness can happen without you knowing why, but there are answers, there is a purpose, and eventually you will know it.”

Turn TO God, even when You’re Wrong (Angry)

Why is this Psalm good? Why is it in the Bible? Why is this man an AUTHOR OF GOD’S WORD!

He is saying things he shouldn’t be saying . . . . . but he is saying them to God. . . He hasn’t left God and that’s whats crucial

Job – Satan- Job 1:9,11

Job 1:9 ESV

Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason?

Job 1:11 ESV

But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”

Job loves what you’ve given Him, not YOU – he serves you for what you’ve done for Him! He is loving himself really!

Give him outer darkness and inner darkness and he’ll curse you!

Satan isn’t just saying that about Job, but about US! He just loves you for the sake of himself! Give him darkness. . .

A lot of Jobs prayers are very similar to Psalm 88, some much more harsh toward God in my opinion (Job 7), at the end God says Job has honored me! Job

Huh? After all those terrible prayers, why would God say Job has honored me? Because they were prayers. Job was being angry and complaining but he was being angry and complaining to GOD, he never walked away from God. He said I don’t understand you and Im angry but he never walked away. He stayed with God when he was getting nothing out of it, and so Satan was defeated

This man here is praying poorly, is angry and complaining, but hes saying it to God, which means Satan is defeated.

“Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

When you go through darkness, if you don’t feel God is there, but you hold on anyway and say you know what, youre God and I am not, and Im not getting anything out of this but Im still going to pray . . . church . . . love my neighbor . . . that will turn you into the strongest kind of person, a person of endurance, strength, greatness

At the end of the Lord of the Rings – Sam, friend of Frodo, ordinary, not gifted just helper, theyre getting close to the end and their strength is almost out and Sam looks up at the top of Mt Doom and he realizes that they’re going to die, no matter what happens they’re going to die. And the thought comes to him, “Just lay down, curl up in a little ball and go to sleep” Text - “Then something began to happen. Even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. As the will hardened in him and he felt through all his limbs a thrill as if he was turning into some creature of steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.”

Its in the darkness when you throw away that transactional approach, its almost that it takes those times to figure out if you became a Christian so that God would serve you or so that you could serve Him.

When you love God regardless of what he is going to give, you become a creature of steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.

End of 88 - Darkness

Matthew 27:45–46 ESV

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Heman wasn’t totally abandoned by God, Jesus was. Heman thought he was in Darkness. Jesus was.

Heman felt that way, Jesus ACTUALLY GOT THE WRATH OF GOD, DARKNESS really was his only friend

Jesus Christ experienced darkness as his only friend so that in your darkness you can know that Jesus is there

Jesus was truly abandoned so that when you feel abandoned you can know it isn’t really true

Psalm 88 is the kind of prayer that Jesus could have prayed in his darkest moments in the Garden of Gethsemane, although that moment gave way to his utter surrender to the will of God